Timeline
The life and career of Hudson River School, 1825–1880
Thomas Cole emigrates from England to the United States
Asher B. Durand, then an engraver, publishes his engraving of the Declaration of Independence
In the autumn Cole travels up the Hudson by steamboat, stopping at West Point and Catskill Landing, and sketches in the eastern Catskills; John Trumbull, William Dunlap and Durand buy his first Hudson landscapes
Cole publishes his Essay on American Scenery in the American Monthly Magazine and exhibits The Oxbow at the National Academy of Design
Cole completes the first set of The Voyage of Life
In Rome, Cole paints a second set of The Voyage of Life, now in the National Gallery of Art
Durand becomes president of the National Academy of Design, serving until 1861
Thomas Cole dies in February; Durand becomes the acknowledged leader of the New York landscape painters
Durand paints Kindred Spirits, showing Cole and William Cullen Bryant in the Catskills
Durand's Letters on Landscape Painting appear in The Crayon
Frederic Edwin Church paints Niagara
Church's Heart of the Andes is exhibited alone at the Tenth Street Studio Building, New York, April 29 - May 23
Church paints Twilight in the Wilderness on the eve of the Civil War
The Metropolitan Museum of Art is founded; Kensett, Gifford and Church are among its founders
The name 'Hudson River School', first used dismissively as Barbizon taste rose in the 1870s, appears in print
John I. H. Baur coins the term 'luminism' for the light-filled style of Lane, Heade and their peers
The Metropolitan Museum of Art opens American Paradise: The World of the Hudson River School
Kindred Spirits is sold by the New York Public Library to Alice Walton; it is now at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art
Thomas Cole's Journey: Atlantic Crossings opens at the Met and travels to the National Gallery, London